The ultimate donor leaves a void

Earlier this year, on April 12, Texas construction magnate Bob Perry cut a million-dollar check to the Republican Governors Association, a group he regularly supported in his long tenure as one of the country’s top political donors.

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In life, Perry spent more than a decade as a financial pillar of the Republican Party; he was the third-biggest political contributor of the 2012 cycle, and hit the number-one mark in multiple previous campaigns. In death, friends and political allies say he leaves a void where there was once a reliable funding stream for the GOP.

In our present, Florentine era of big-money politics, the death of Bob Perry is a cautionary case study in what happens when one of the engines of a national party suddenly disappears – when one of the men and women who have sustained a network of advocacy groups and political campaigns unexpectedly vanishes from the scene. The free-for-all of campaign fundraising tends to privilege larger-than-life, ideological donors, rather than durable institutions, and little thought is given to what happens when one of those outsized figures is no longer around.

A media-shy businessman who eschewed the traditional perks of the wealthy political kingpin – elite political conferences, closed-door retreats with candidates, presidential inaugural balls – Perry never built an industrial political apparatus around his bank account. Unlike other mega-donors, such as Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers, Perry had no political entourage to speak of. Several recipients of his largesse told POLITICO that they never met the man, or met him only in passing.

The few Republicans who truly did know Perry well say there’s no electoral machine left over to perpetuate his generosity. The Federal Election Commission records over $34 million in contributions from Perry to various candidates, committees and unlimited-donation outside groups; on top of that, he gave nearly $27 million to registered 527 organizations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and tens of millions more in Texas-based donations.

But Perry’s wife, Doylene, is said to be largely apolitical. At least one of his children, Kathy Britton, has shown some interest in politics; but no one expects Perry’s children to maintain their father’s level of political giving.

While Republicans say their party is hardly in dire financial straits, there are already places where Perry’s absence is felt: for example, in the debate over immigration reform, a cause Perry long believed in and which friends say he intended to support this year.

Republican strategist Phil Musser, who was friends with Perry and was among the national Republicans the influential donor consulted, said political action “was [Perry’s] thing, not his family’s thing.”

“He really kind of made his own determinations and relied on very few. The reality is, this was a very devout, humble and honorable man who had a viewpoint and he put his money behind that viewpoint. He didn’t care about credit, and didn’t seek the spotlight,” Musser said, adding: “When he passed away, I suspect that was the end of an era.”

Fred Malek, the finance chairman of the RGA, said that Perry’s death left “a gap” in the world of GOP money.